Over the past decade or so, the world of comics has been grudgingly granted some measures of legitimacy, as it fights hard to move beyond the common misconception that it’s all ‘muscles and fights’ and guys punching things and girls with ridiculous proportions and non-costumes (obviously drawn as such to attract the arrested arousal of adolescents and other men trapped on a adolescent state). The whole ‘comics are for kids and losers’ stigma is fading, so I’m a fan of anything that takes comic fantasy seriously as a significant cultural phenomenon. Even if you’re not a fan of comics, you can’t deny the impact they’ve had.

So, when an institution as important as The Met says ‘hey, we’ve got superheroes!’, I listen. Using an array of well-known, super-heroic costumes as inspiration, a small gathering of ultra-famous designers and design studios were summoned to create their own versions of the costumes. The characters represented included Batman, Iron Man, Superman, The Incredible Hulk, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Mystique (and her mutant ilk), and Catwoman - movie versions all. Photography was not allowed, so please click around to see links to photos and videos elsewhere on the web, snapped by braver souls than I.

It was a little disappointing that the paper heart of comic culture was not tapped more heavily, and only the superficial movie costume designs were utilized. If the idea was to access the most popular aspects of the characters, the movie versions of them would be it - even if the ‘movie versions’ of all superhero costumes are much more practical and realistic than their truly fantastic comic counterparts. I can’t help but think that exploring the true depths of comic imagery would have yielded some even more wild and/or sexy results. Of course, the designers made it very apparent that the physical appearance of the costume was pretty much irrelevant - it was what the costume represents that they were exploring.

These weren’t redesigned superhero costumes at all, so don’t let the title of the show fool you into some false sense of familiarity. No one’s fighting anything in these, except for a possibly to-the-death battle with dignity. These ‘costumes’ were all super-manifestations of the essences of superpowers - from abstract, angular sports designs for the speed and aerodynamism of The Flash, to a simple, tremendously ugly brick-pattern-slash-football-outfit to symbolize the strength and endurance of the Hulk.

Being completely ignorant of the fashion world, I wasn’t exceptionally thrilled (or even conscious) of the fancy designer names, nor seeing original designs in the flesh. What I WAS excited about was seeing each original movie costume that the absurd ‘designer’ costumes were inspired by. These included Christopher Reeves’ screen-worn Superman costume (accompanied by an excellent hologram that switched it back and forth between his Clark Kent, civilian attire), the Iron Man Mark II armor, and the surprisingly tiny Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman costume. Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman costume remains in one piece, though it bears the fading and loose threads of a costume ten times its age. The Batman costume of choice wasn’t a classic Adam West getup, or the acceptable Michael Keaton gear, or even the tragically-nippled Schumacher versions, but the Batman outfit from the upcoming Dark Knight film. The Met was so topical that it was showcasing costumes that no one had even seen yet.

If they really wanted to see something, The Met would have tossed out some classic villain costumes to reinterpret. Those guys are crazy, and they don’t care if their helmets have 9-foot tall fins on them, or that purple really doesn’t go with green. While heroes are about unity and coordination, the bad guys survive on discord and discomfort - which are two things that would be really fun to see in a ‘fashion’ sense. As it was, making a spider-webby dress to express Spider-Man is a disappointingly obvious decision, and green, inflatable Hulk muscle vests were a clever juxtaposition of form and function - even if they had zero aesthetic appeal.

It wasn’t unexpected that most of the the fashions were fairly pretentious (using one’s own initials instead of Superman’s trademark ‘S’), and had very little to do with superheroes. Every ‘fashion’ expressed very human qualities - things that heroes happen to occasionally represent when they’re not punching things. Sure, the show addressed the complexity of fictional heroism, but it could have very easily excluded the idea of heroes entirely and focused on the spectrum of human emotions. It might have made it feel a lot more coherent, but also far less appealing to a population that’s ready to embrace superheroes. And I wouldn’t have been able to see Rebecca Romijn’s mutant appliqués in person.

As a small bonus at the end of the show for real hardcore geeks, The Met assembled a collection of the most valuable comics in all of geekdom. We’re talkin’ Action Comics #1 with the first appearance of Superman, the first appearance of Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #39, and some astonishingly early Batman appearances, all in one place and under plexiglass. For people to tap on, apparently. Why one would tap on the glass in front of an inanimate object as if it were a sleepy kitten, I’m not entirely sure, but it was done. For the record, none of the comics seemed to notice.

The gift shop included some alarmingly (but appropriately) gaudy, $30 t-shirts, a super-glossy show catalogue paperback for $30, or a handsome tin-covered version for $50, among other more common items. The cost prevented me from partaking in the acquisition of new superhero items, as much as I like to extend my tangential superhero book collection.

The show is worth seeing, if only for the original super-costumes. While I came away with a new understanding of exactly what ‘fashion’ is and stands to represent, I’ll leave it to the experts, while I ponder how Wolverine gets his face-pointies to stand so straight. I’m willing to bet that it’s simple cardboard inserts. The show will be open through September 1st, 2008.

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